This Vacation Left Me Climbing the Walls

By

Michael J. Ybarra

Updated May 28, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

Bugaboo Provincial Park, British Columbia

I was almost to the top of the climb when the storm broke. Thunder boomed louder than one would like when you're about a thousand feet up the north face of a granite spire. I might as well have been climbing a lightning rod.

My friend Nick was yelling at me to leave gear and come back to the belay so we could get the hell off the mountain.

Rain was pelting my face, wind blowing hail up at me.

I yelled back that I was going to the top. This was the last pitch of a climb called Sunshine Crack (rated 5.11, or fairly difficult) on Snowpatch Spire, a 10,000-foot peak in this park full of magnificent rock towers.

ENLARGE

The view from the top of the climb.
Michael J. Ybarra

My reasoning—which I didn't have time to explain to Nick—was that it would be more difficult to build my own anchor than to finish the pitch and reach the fixed anchor on top. In truth, I had summit fever—even though the route doesn't go to the spire's true summit but stops on the shoulder. Earlier I had lost a contact lens on the climb and all I could do was focus minutely on the amazing crack system that carves a route up the steep face. The bigger world was a blur to me.

Nick's perspective was better. He was trapped at the belay with nothing to do but hold the rope connecting him to his idiot partner and watch the horrible weather explode around us. Later, I talked to someone who huddled in the campground outhouse during the storm and saw a lightning bolt strike Snowpatch.

The weather relented, although our descent was still a minor epic, with stuck ropes and frayed nerves. I was ready to take it easy for a change.

That's how I came to try heli-hiking. This was the third time I'd come to Canada to attempt a famous climb called the Beckey-Chouinard (rated 5.10) on South Howser Tower, one of the most coveted alpine rock routes in the world. And three times bad weather prevented me from even getting close to the climb.

But every time I hiked into the Bugaboos, I passed a fancy lodge run by Canadian Mountain Holidays, which flies skiers and hikers around the hills. And every time I hauled a heavy pack up the trail and huddled in a wind-battered tent, I wondered what it would be like to experience the mountains and retreat to a comfortable bed at night.

So a couple of days after walking out of the woods in the rain, I helicoptered up to the Bobbie Burns Lodge in the Purcell Mountains, north of the Bugaboos.

Instead of getting up in the middle of the night and choking down an energy bar, I slept in, ate a fantastic breakfast, and then, at the crack of 9, climbed into a helicopter with guides. We were dropped off in an alpine meadow and spent a day hiking up to a ridge, admiring wildflowers, the rugged terrain and expansive views. In the afternoon, a helicopter ferried us back to the lodge for cocktails and a fine dinner.

One day we flew to the base of Mount Nimus, an impressive rock pinnacle, where the CMH guides recently built a via ferrata—or iron road—of rungs and cables up to the summit. Originally developed as a way to move troops through the Dolomite mountains in Italy during World War I, via ferratehave become popular throughout Europe. You wear a harness and clip into the cables in case you slip, but you don't have to know how to do anything more complicated than climb a ladder. There are only a few via ferrate in North America, and since I had never been on one I thought I'd give it a try.

To keep things interesting, I decided not to use any of the rungs and just climb the rock like I normally would on a mountain—which turned out to be pretty easy, even in running shoes. The via ferrata is certainly a good way to let people without training or experience discover the thrill of being in a high and exposed place with very little risk. Everyone in my group seemed to have a great time.

While I certainly had a pleasant day, I didn't feel the connection to the natural world that I usually seek by going into the wild. The rock was tamed with iron. A helicopter was a radio call away to whisk us back to the comforts of the lodge in case it started raining, which it did. I'd hate to think I can have fun only if I'm scared, exhausted and in danger—but I was beginning to wonder.

After a few days of what most people would call an awesome vacation, I was literally climbing the walls—both the climbing wall in the exercise room and the rock-studded pillars in front of the lodge. Everything was first rate: the food, the mountain views from the hot tub and the glass-walled sauna. The pace was leisurely and there was even Wi-Fi. I was being treated like a king. I was miserable.

I kept looking south to the Bugs, and when the sky was clear I could see the Howser Towers. I couldn't stop thinking about the Beckey-Chouinard. I knew I had to try one more time.

After a few restful days and some fattening up, I was back on the hiking trail with a pack digging into my shoulders. My friend Brian had time off from work, and the forecast was as good as it was ever going to get for the Bugs. We lugged gear up to the campground, caught a few hours of sleep and at 3 a.m. set off for South Howser (10,800 feet). We crossed a glacier, climbed a pass, trudged over another glacier and dropped into a valley on the other side. By daylight we were looking up at the sinuous buttress of South Howser, a beautiful, soaring sweep of granite, as elegant and as simple as a single brush stroke on a canvas.

Fifteen pitches of flawless yet challenging climbing and some scrambling put us on the summit 10 hours after starting. The sights were incredible. Fingers of sheer granite rose out of the surrounding glaciers, mountain after mountain ranged in the distance. It was like being back in a helicopter.

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